Significant Disease Investigation (SDI) program

Victoria is fortunate to be free of most of the serious diseases that affect animals in other parts of the world.

The Victorian Significant Disease Investigation (SDI) Program aims to boost Victoria's capacity for the early detection of such diseases in livestock and wildlife by increasing the participation of vets and subsidising the cost of investigating significant diseases.

Subsidies are available from Agriculture Victoria for the initial field investigation, including clinical and post-mortem evaluation, laboratory testing and a follow-up investigation of significant disease events in livestock and wildlife.

Livestock includes:

ruminants
horses
pigs
poultry

What is a significant disease?

To be considered 'significant', one or more of the following criteria must be met for the disease event:

An unusual or atypical manifestation of disease, including high morbidity, mortality and/or rate of spread.
An initial investigation fails to establish a diagnosis, including when veterinary treatment does not produce the expected response.
There are findings suggesting a possible effect on trade, public health, biodiversity or the viability of a farm, industry or region, excluding events where there is a genuine suspicion of an emergency animal disease.

Where there is a genuine suspicion of an exotic or emergency animal disease, the department will lead the disease investigation and cover the cost of the investigation.

If you suspect an exotic or emergency animal disease, immediately contact your local Agriculture Animal Health and Welfare office or the all-hours Emergency Animal Disease Hotline 1800 675 888.

Subsidies for vets

Eligible vets are those in private veterinary practice, zoos or wildlife parks.

Undertaking and reporting the initial disease investigation to Agriculture Victoria:

$300 plus GST

Undertaking and reporting a follow-up investigation to Agriculture Victoria:

$300 plus GST

This includes follow up blood testing where convalescent sera is required to confirm a diagnosis.

Laboratory testing costs:

up to $500 (not payable to the vet)

Procedure for undertaking significant disease investigations

Seeking authorisation

Where possible, practitioners should seek authorisation from their local Agriculture Victoria District Veterinary Officer (DVO) prior to or at the time of undertaking the field investigation.

If the DVO cannot be contacted, authorisation may be sought from the Agriculture Victoria Senior Veterinary Officer (SVO) for the practitioner's geographical region.

Although it may be impractical to seek authorisation prior to or at the time of the on-farm investigation, authorisation for the investigation must be sought prior to the submission of laboratory samples.

Laboratory submissions

Specimens for laboratory testing must be submitted to:

Veterinary Diagnostics Services laboratory – AgriBio, Bundoora
Phone: 9032 7515
Email: vet.diagnostics@agriculture.vic.gov.au

All laboratory submissions must be accompanied with an interim Laboratory examination sample submission form & Record of Disease Event (RODE) form.

Unless this form is provided with the laboratory submission, the submitting veterinary practice will be responsible for the cost of diagnostic testing.

The Duty Pathologist will make a determination of the type and sequence of testing.

Any additional testing not indicated for the investigation, but requested by the submitter, will be completed on a fee-for-service basis by prior agreement with the submitter.

A final typewritten RODE is to be provided promptly to the approving DVO following the completion of the investigation.

For follow-up investigations, authorisation must be provided by the department and a separate RODE is to be provided.

Subsidies for cattle, sheep, goat and pig producers

Disease investigation is often hampered by factors such as reduced economic value of livestock and remote location of farms. To assist with overcoming this a subsidy is also available for cattle, sheep, goat and pig owners to reduce their costs when they engage a vet to undertake a significant disease investigation.

Engaging a vet to undertake a significant disease investigation:

up to $200

This subsidy is for the vet's:

consultation
disease investigation (necropsy)
travel costs.

It excludes medications and is provided in the form of a deduction from the vet's fee. The vet will then be reimbursed by the department.

The subsidy is only applicable for significant disease investigations authorised by Agriculture Victoria following application from a vet.

The number of such subsidies paid is subject to an annual cap.

Conditions of payment for significant disease investigations

Payment for investigations to vets is conditional upon the following:

Authorisation by Agriculture Victoria for the investigation.
Samples and interim RODE submitted to the Veterinary Diagnostic Services – AgriBio.
The completed investigation reported on a typewritten RODE, along with copies of any submission form(s) and laboratory reports, to the approving DVO.
If a cattle, sheep, goat or pig producer subsidy is being claimed, a copy of the veterinary practice's tax invoice to the producer must be provided to the approving DVO, showing the deduction of up to $200.
An itemised tax invoice for $300 plus GST for the RODE, and if eligible, up to $200 plus GST for the producer subsidy, is provided by the veterinary practice to the approving DVO.
The tax invoice should include the producer's name, PIC and a comment that it relates to a significant disease investigation and be issued within 60 days of the investigation being completed.

Sudden death investigations

Anthrax exclusion testing should be carried out on all sudden, unexplained deaths of cattle, sheep and other susceptible livestock.

For cattle and sheep, rapid anthrax exclusion testing should be done in the field using an ICT kit.

To encourage anthrax exclusion testing, particularly in areas of Victoria with a history of anthrax and to cover the cost of testing for producers the department will pay private practitioners $200 plus GST for a basic anthrax exclusion in cattle and sheep. To be eligible for this payment, a practitioner must:

notify Agriculture Victoria of the suspect case
perform an ICT
report the summary findings to the local Agriculture Victoria District Veterinary Officer (DVO) using a Record of disease event (RODE) form.

Your DVO will advise you during the investigation whether further samples are required and the appropriate method for dispatch of samples.

For sheep, in cases where the DVO has advised further confirmatory testing is not required, please consider submitting an EDTA blood sample and the used ICT kit to the department's AgriBio Bundoora veterinary laboratory to contribute to ongoing validation of the test kits.

Where to obtain testing kits

Field testing of cattle and sheep carcasses can be carried out using a hand-held immunochromatographic test (ICT). Agriculture Victoria Animal Health and Welfare (AHW) staff can provide training to any vets in your practice on use of the kits and will provide ICT kits to your practice at no cost. ICT kits can only be used by veterinarians certified by Agriculture Victoria.

Please contact your local Agriculture Victoria AHW staff if you need ICT kits or to organise refresher training of existing users or training for new ICT kit users. A series of online anthrax training modules for veterinarians can be found by referring to the Anthrax in animals webpage.

Positive diagnosis of anthrax

Where anthrax is suspected, the department must be notified immediately and the carcass should remain undisturbed and unopened at the death site until anthrax is ruled out.

To encourage this, cattle, sheep and goat producers are eligible for a one-off industry-funded incentive payment of $1,000 (cattle) or $500 (sheep or goat) following a positive diagnosis of anthrax if the:

cattle, sheep or goat carcass have not been moved from the death site, and
producer reports the case to Agriculture Victoria or their private veterinarian for testing, and
animal is found to be the first anthrax case associated with an outbreak (only one payment for an outbreak where multiple farms are affected).

Note: if more than one species from one producer has a positive diagnosis, only one incentive payment will be made.

Negative ICT result

Where anthrax is not suspected following a negative ICT result and a further investigation of the cause of death is undertaken by the practitioner (including necropsy), the investigation may be eligible for other subsidies following approval by your DVO.

Investigation of illness or death in backyard poultry flocks, pet birds, and wild birds by veterinary practitioners

Exclusion testing for high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) should be conducted when examining sick or dead birds from backyard poultry flocks, pet birds or wild birds, whilst being mindful of the zoonotic potential of HPAI.

To encourage and support such testing, Agriculture Victoria is offering free HPAI exclusion testing for dead or sick pets or from small holdings, or wild birds anywhere in Victoria. Veterinarians who collect samples from single or small numbers of birds are eligible to receive a subsidy of $200 + GST per case on submission of suitable samples and documentation.

A set of simple swabs and a brief history is all that is required.

To access the $200 testing subsidy, contact either your local DVO, or call 136 186.

To find more information including details on sample submission, guidelines on sample collection, reminders on suitable PPE and background information on avian influenza, go to:

Avian influenza information for veterinarians

Submitting specimens to the laboratory

Private vets who collect samples from commercial flocks of domestic birds anywhere in Victoria and include testing to rule out highly pathogenic avian influenza, will be eligible to access a subsidy via the existing significant disease investigation program on submission of suitable samples and required documentation. Contact your local DVO to access this program as outlined above.

Avian influenza is a notifiable disease, and veterinarians who know of or suspect the presence of the disease MUST IMMEDIATELY report it to Agriculture Victoria. You can do this by calling:

An Animal Health Officer or District Veterinary Officer at Agriculture Victoria on 136 186 (Monday – Friday 8.30 am – 5 pm) or

The Emergency Animal Disease hotline on 1800 675 888

Find out more about avian influenza

More information

For more information, please see:

Further information

For more information about the subsidies for significant disease investigations and reporting, contact Animal Health and Welfare staff at your nearest Agriculture Victoria office or the Customer Service Centre on 136 186.

Page last updated: 06 Jan 2025